Recipe: Go-To Granola (previously known as “nutty maple granola”)

UPDATED 28 October 2017: I realized recently that, although I’ve had two granola recipes on the blog, I actually end up making some sort of hybrid recipe every time. I was telling my mom and grandma about it recently, which made me decide I really only needed one granola recipe on the blog. Apparently I get the granola-making bug from my grandma, who has been making her own for years, thanks to the Barefoot Contessa!

All that is a long-winded way of saying I’ve rebranded my “nutty maple granola” as this “go-to granola“: the failsafe, works-every-time, crunchy deliciousness that granola ought to be. I have still not found a store-bought brand that measures up, at least by my taste.

While this is my favorite base recipe and works great as-is, you are welcome to vary it to your tastes. In fact, I often go with whatever the pantry holds. Here are some tips andtricks that I have gleaned over a few years of granola-making:

I learned from the excellent smitten kitchen cookbook that anegg white is the secret to beautiful, ragged, crunchy granola clusters. Don’t skip it, unless you somehow don’t like clusters.

Use your favorite nut(s): use one kind, use two or even three kinds of nut to get up to the 1.5 cups required. I usually throw in whatever I happen to have around: sometimes it’s walnuts+almonds, sometimes one or the other, and on occasion it’s pecans when I’ve splurged. (Pecans are really the best, as they work so well with maple syrup.)

You’re welcome to use coconut oil instead of sunflower oil. Any other neutral oil would be fine, too.

In terms of spices, sometimes I use ginger+cinnamon and sometimes I use allspice+ginger – the latter gives the granola a lovely bit of kick.

I used to add dried fruit to my granola after it cooled. Now, I leave the dried fruit out and just add raisins or dried cranberries straight in when I’m ready to devour a bowl of yogurt and granola.

You can store your granola in a jar or other air-tight container at room temperature, but this recipe makes so much granola that I usually store some in ziplock bags in the freezer. It thaws quickly and is actually quite nice (extra crunchy) straight from the freezer!

beautiful, crunchy clusters!

Go-To Granola(inspired by thesetwo recipes and tweaked to my tastes over 4 1/2 years of making it)